Airline Bumping, Circa Mid 90s
“Come here; I just want to talk to you,” she sings in a tone that belies daggers. Two flight attendants are poised by the cabin door, ready, I am certain, to slam it behind me.
“Come here; I just want to talk to you,” she sings in a tone that belies daggers. Two flight attendants are poised by the cabin door, ready, I am certain, to slam it behind me.
Was I really so taken in by the razzmatazz of Hollywood? Or was it simply the same response, say, a hamster would have had after slumbering in such close proximity to another hamster?
It’s a Beijing conundrum because I don’t want to support the stolen bike industry by buying a new, used, probably stolen bike.
Not everyone has as much attraction to strangers as I do, but if you do, with skis and the city and a camera, you have a great excuse.
We prowl Yashow’s aisles, giggling like a pair of teens, assessing shoes and scarves, chattering at the leisurely pace of the senior citizen duo we now are.
Surveys showed that one in twelve listeners believed the story was real and that Martians were invading New Jersey.
Are two overnights a month better than four visits for a few hours each plus having her nearby for spontaneous additional visits?
Regret is one of my least favorite feelings. In a few minutes I would be switching trains, and the opportunity to help this stranger on a train would soon expire . . .
A truck driver once told me that his instructions were: if you think you are going to hit a car with, say, a family in it, then try to kill all the occupants, because the financial settlement would be lower than if they lived.
y very presence seemed to bring out the worrywart in my adventuresome Eliza, as though every day of our time together in Laos were Freaky Friday, as in the film of the same name in which mother and daughter find their personalities exchanged.
ADD and the Worrywart: This explains why every time I go to New York, I get more work done than when I’m home, writing on my quiet porch in Washington, D.C.
In 1980, while living in China, I insisted on speaking Mandarin when planning a dinner for Alan Dershowitz and other Harvard professors. Oops.
I didn’t see why that was so funny, until they caught their breath and told me . . .
I am a fan of Amtrak’s quiet car, yet I harbor love-hate emotions toward the sub-culture of those who journey in this vessel of alleged silence.
Suddenly a skinny, little girl—of perhaps seven years—broke free from her family and darted in front of my bicycle.
On a Sunday evening in New York I enjoyed a lovely dinner at the Union Square Café with my friend Jessica. I was happy with my pappardelle until two thirds of the way through my meal, at the next table, a waitperson placed in front of a trim young woman …
Ever since reading about Dutch Airline KLM’s new program that allows passengers to choose seatmates, using Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, I’ve been contemplating who my ideal seat mate should be. For a worrywart this whole idea is a great thing.
Note to those of my peeps to whom Twitterspeak is as foreign as Uz-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan-ese: You may not want to slog through this one. If you do, RT means retweet. I spend a lot of time on Twitter sharing links to articles I write. I have cultivated a variety of followers. …
When I’m in New York, I like to hang out and write at Jack’s, a coffee place in the West Village with a patina that suggests long afternoons of sipping lattes and tapping on laptops. The overall look is shades of brown, like paper bags and coffee. Jack’s is so …
Beware of asking me to rant. I am liable to start today, five days after autumn began (also National Good Neighbor Day and National Pancake Day), and never stop until Flag Day. If you really want to hear loud and wild talk, ask me about the leaf blowers whose noise …
Season 8 of “The Family Vacation” has ended. Back from The Hamptons to their everyday lives are “Family Vacation” stars: the exes—since 1998—Steve and Susan (yours truly) and their three twenty-something daughters, Eliza, Sabrina and Emily. Let’s take a look back at Season 1, Summer of 2004. “The whole family’s …
If your mother has recently died, here is a post I wrote for you. Saturday, July 2, 2011 Mother died today. I am not trying to channel Camus, just trying to make sense of how it feels to suddenly become a 65-year-old orphan in New York while my mom’s cold …
Only eight weeks ago, I was on a half-hour bike ride home, all uphill, when I called Mom for our daily shmooze. We caught up on political scandals, Sarah Palin, literature, Oprah and Mom’s latest Bingo game. While we talked, mounting the hill was effortless. Shortly after that, her doctor determined …
Losing a Kindle or an iPad, it could happen to you (White Girl Worry alert) . . . I flew home from Boston on Friday night of Memorial weekend. At 2 a.m. before getting into bed to read, I emptied all my bags and clearly I’d left my Kindle on the …
I don’t claim to be chill, but I become even less chill when someone tells me to chillax. When I’m really excited about something and someone says, “Chillax,” it’s even worse; it’s what my friend calls “squishing the little bird inside of you.” Take, for example, the time I was …
My Chinese friend Tammy took a few of us to the courtyard of Ritan Park’s Xi He Ya Ju for Easter dinner (and my last night in Beijing), which included golden, crispy Peking Duck. Afterwards, we enjoyed duck soup, made with the duck’s body parts and soft tofu. All the …
A crowd of gray-haired parents of single adults negotiates with one another along a stretch of Beijing’s Zhongshan Park. These confabs occur on a strip of pavement lined on one side with rainbows of tulips and, on the other side, with the moat of the Forbidden City. A woman, …
Unrelated Announcement, my new article: CAN SEPARATE BEDROOMS SAVE A MARRIAGE? Weigh In! It wasn’t like I had a choice when, at the breakfast table, my then-21-year-old daughter Eliza presented me with documents to sign. The whole family had to swear to confidentiality or the plan was off for her …
There’s a lot to learn during 10 days in New York. I learned I can go far north or south on dedicated bike lanes. And once a day someone grouses at me for wheeling crosstown on the sidewalk, not that I blame them. But I do blame the guy who tried …